Historically, there has been more research available regarding how study abroad students experience culture shock versus how they experience reverse culture shock upon returning home. However, research has shown that reverse culture shock can often be more difficult to navigate than the initial culture shock students experience. By reason of that…

This article revisits the notion of difference used in global education, especially study abroad. It suggests a new framework for study abroad to counter its prevalent notions of immersion and global competence that are based on and perpetuate the static notion of difference among discrete units of 'culture'. I introduce the Commodity Project,…

This narrative inquiry explores three Chinese university leaders' intercultural competence as a key dimension of their leadership that overseas leadership development programmes enabled them to develop. The leaders visited three different countries -- namely, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada -- storied their experiences in the…

This manuscript is one part of a larger exploratory collective case study of pre-service teachers who participated in a student teaching abroad program for one-month in Germany. The objective was to ascertain if and how pre-service teachers with no prior training in intercultural competence (ICC) developed both their understanding and…

Today's increasingly heterogeneous world imposes demands on higher education institutions to develop university students' intercultural competence (IC) so that they respond constructively to the cultural challenges of the 21st century. This study aims to explore the impact of short-term study abroad programs on the development of students'…

The largest group of international students pursuing their overseas higher education in the UK come from China; and yet, little qualitative research has explored the experiences of Chinese students who have recently made this transition, with even less focusing on the experiences of both undergraduate and postgraduate students. The present article…

The purpose of this qualitative exploratory study was to explore, with former study abroad participants, their perceptions of how their experience abroad has influenced them. The results of the study provide recommendations to prospective study abroad participants and to those that develop and advise for programs. Ultimately, the recommendations…

In this qualitative study, we describe how gender, race, language, and culture cumulatively shape researcher development. Using a collaborative autoethnographic design, we theorize about our experiences as two Black women who conducted their dissertation research in Brazil and Ethiopia. Our data sources include retrospective interviews, journal…

To understand how ISL addresses linguistic difference between participants and host communities, a qualitative content analysis of recent peerreviewed articles in which programs were described as having addressed linguistic difference. Nearly half of the literature did not explicate how language was addressed. Across 25 programs, seven methods…

This article explores data from a group of British pre-service teachers (PST) following a teaching programme in South Africa. Their reflections are analysed in relation to assertions that such intercultural programmes do little to change hegemonic beliefs about the 'other'. Analysis of questionnaire and interview data suggests that whilst these…

In the initial phase of participating in short-term semester abroad programs, newly arrived international students may face a lot of difficulties and challenging experiences living in Thai society. This phenomenological study reports on the issues of socio-cultural adaptation experienced by German exchange students while participating in semester…

In this paper, the intercultural experience of two Mexican students who made a credit mobility during a scholar semester at a foreign university was analyzed. The analysis was based on semi-structured interviews and reflective reports. A qualitative phenomenological approach was used to analyze the intercultural experience. The experience of the…

This reflective paper shares the experiences of a higher education professional living and working abroad and the long-term impacts of those experiences on their self-authorship journey through reflection ten years later. The story of this reflection focuses on how cultural differences and community ties helped to facilitate growth and…

Using a case study approach, this study examined the role that spatialized notions of race and sense of belonging had on 10 Black students from a predominantly White institution, in a diasporic study abroad experience in Cuba. In particular, this study explored how race was situated in the study abroad program (space) and in Cuba (place) and how…

This report describes the moral phenomena that students in an intensive Arabic study abroad program encountered as they tried to find speaking opportunities for themselves outside of institutional arrangements. The ways that participants went about speaking activities were accompanied by tensions that they had to deal with throughout the program.…